An Hour With Brandywine
by Denwa
Summary: What will never be will never be. [Neji, Sasuke, Sakura.]


"How are—" the Hyuuga boy begins to say nonchalantly, hoping to strike up a conversation with the younger boy, except Sasuke snorts as he fakes to sip his green tea (the dead members of his clan could do better than this slightly flavored water) and his dull black eyes stare into Neji's white ones.

"Hyuuga," he replies aristocratically (was that an accent Neji detected? Too long in Otogakure probably didn't do you much good) while swinging the cup in a circular motion, the water swishing dangerously close to the edge, "I don't exactly think that you want to ask that question—yeah, fuck common courtesy; I don't think that I want to answer that question; I don't exactly think that everything will be okay if you ask me that question—no, don't go saying 'How are you?' just for the hell of it because no one wants to hear it." With that, he slams the teacup done on the wooden table and he waits.

_For what?_ Neji thinks bitterly. _What is there to wait for? You just completely slaughtered what I had to say, so what the hell am I supposed to do now, Uchiha?_

"And," the younger boy continues, not looking away from Neji's face, "just so you know, in case you want to have me over ever again which is highly unlikely, I don't happen to like green tea like Kakashi does." He raises an eyebrow at this; Kakashi-sensei likes green tea? "I like rose hip tea with roasted barley—"

"So you like mugicha, just with rose hips?"

The younger boy glowers at the older one; presses his lips together and sets his face into a deeper frown. "Yes, yes," he agrees airily like he did not do anything at all; like nothing happened, not his prissy attitude towards the Hyuuga boy, not his almost misplaced pride; nothing happened from the ordinary. "Yes, I suppose that you're correct; that I could've said 'mugicha with rose hips' except I said that I preferred whatwasit, 'rose hip tea with roasted barley'?"

Neji's grip on his white porcelain teacup considerably tightens until it was one hour away from breaking—why was Sasuke always so _frustrating? _Naruto and Sakura must've had a never-ending amount of patience. "Very well, then," he says stiffly—it's almost awkward, in its own biting way; "I _do_ suppose that this might be the time to ask if your team is doing alright—mine… _my_ team, of course, is doing… Gai-sensei and Lee are doing strange things, as usual, and Tenten and I are…." How was he to explain this? Gai-sensei and Lee; Tenten and him. It was simple like that, and Team 7 was just….

Wasn't mugicha just flavored water? Neji purses his lips and thinks. About flavored water—why not make miso ramen-flavored water? It was insanity, being with Uchiha Sasuke who was sitting in front of him, legs crossed, head tipped to the right, hair falling into his pale face. Drinking his green tea; he hates green tea, apparently; he likes mugicha with rose hips, whatastrangeboy, whatastrangeboy.

"Naruto…," he begins hesitantly, like if he told Neji then the world would fall apart; "Naruto is… he's… honesttogod, I have no idea what the hell he's doing right now; Kakashi is…; Sai is… —Tenzou is…." Sasuke plays with the gloves on his hands; they remind him of _her_—she liked to wear gloves, didn't she? She didn't have a choice; everything would scrape her hand if she didn't wear them—(he clears his throat; it's not closing up). "Naruto spies on women; Kakashi reads his book; Sai… SaiandTenzou, Ihaven'tseenthemlately."

Why does he speak so fast? _Slow down a little_, Neji wants to say to the younger boy; _slow down a little because you're going too fast and you can't make it happen but he knows that Sasuke won't listen._

"… Is this really tea?" the Uchiha boy asks and the Hyuuga boy successfully resists the urge to say, _What the hell, boy? It is_.

"Do you miss her?" he asks instead, ignoring the question.

"No," Sasuke replies.

"Liar," retorts Neji, snorting, taking another gulp of his flavored water (_It's green tea_, snarls his head; _it's—green—tea_) and setting down the cup. "You can't even live a day without her," he continues savagely and Sasuke does not wince because it's probably true. "You don't sleep anymore; you don't eat anymore—" Sasuke opens his mouth to retort but the older boy ignores it "—you don't go out anymore—in fact, I'm just going to go ahead and guess that the only reason you're here is because you want to drink tea except, _no_—we—don't—have—your—damn—mugicha—don't argue with me, don't get smart with me; can't you just get a hold on your stupidworthnothing life and move the hell on?" _Naruto has been rubbing off of me_, Neji thinks long-sufferingly because he just gave Uchiha Sasuke the verbal bitchslap of his life.

"Fate—" begins Uchiha.

"Fate has nothing to do with it," snaps Hyuuga. "If you loved her, let her go—she's not here anymore. What's happened? Life happened. Get on with it."

And so he listens.


End file.
